Abhorrent views

My nose measurements are: 4.5 centimetres from root to tip, or if you like, 6 cm from bridge -navigating the nasal tip - to the point where nose joins upper lip. It’s difficult to measure something like a nose, with no hard edges and no precise beginning or end. 

Anyway, I thought you might be interested, because I’m going to talk about antisemitism again. 

It’s exasperating that while even the BBC has started noticing the antisemitism in the Labour party, most people are still tiptoeing round the topic. Still afraid to say out loud what needs to be said.

It’s only when matters come to the surface in a tangible, low hanging fashion that people can grasp it, and satisfy themselves that they’ve dealt with it. Frantic virtue signalling is the order of the day.

So Gerry Downing  was out of order to say - what was it again - that thing he said about Jews? 

Oh yes, he referred to “the Jewish Question”, a chilling phrase borrowed from Hitler’s lot. Then there was Vicky Whassername who said Jews have big noses. Well, that’s demonstrably racist, therefore saying such a thing in on Twitter is undoubtedly deserving of a slap on the wrist.

These remarks are as stupid as they are offensive, and even Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t reasonably let anyone get away with saying them without sacking them from his party. So he suspended them.

Mark Mardell featured this topic on radio 4 

Mark Mardell: Is Jeremy Corbyn doing enough? 

Angela Smith: Well I think Jeremy Corbyn has a role to play here as the leader of the Labour Party. I think the entire leadership of the Labour Party, the Shadow Cabinet, really has to get out there and make it absolutely clear there is no place in the party for this behaviour. 

MM: So they’re not doing that now? 

AS: Well I think Jeremy could do more. I think Jeremy really needs to come out and say publicly that he will not tolerate this in the party. He said it privately at the PLP last night. I think he needs to come out and say it.

The Today Programme featured it, too. 

“Labour have suspended for a second time a member who posted anti-Semitic tweets. This follows days of accusations of anti-Semitism within the party. Speaking on the programme this morning is Jeremy Newmark, chair of the Jewish Labour movement.”

“Are you accepting that Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership has allowed this to happen?” 

“Are you hearing more than we’ve reported on here?” 

“What should Jeremy Corbyn do?” 

“Do you know when Vicky Kirby rejoined the Labour party? Before he became leader!” 

“What should Jeremy Corbyn do?”

Sarah’s questioning all but implied that Jeremy Corbyn was almost powerless to act.

What can you do? she shrugged, bemused. (That’s me, imagining it; not an actual account, since I don’t have visuals on my radio)

It’s all part of the convenient separation of two distinct aspects of this antisemitic virus. Part one is made up of childish, neoNazi tropes like the big-nosed, greedy Jew, hell-bent on world domination. This is the the low-hanging fruit, which Jeremy Corbyn can freely condemn. 

However, part two dwarfs part one. Beside part two, part one almost pales into insignificance. Part two is, of course, the part that hardly anyone dares to articulate - the Islamic-based antisemitism that permeates the entire Middle East, and the very thing that is at the heart of the Israel Palestine conflict. And so many MPs are beholden to the Muslim vote, so they’re effectively muzzled. And so many leftists are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

What does it boil down to? Well, maybe it boils down to Michael Foster’s outburst at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting in which Jeremy Corbyn made a speech without saying ‘that word.’

All that stuff about antisemitism in the Labour Party by Owen Jones, Hugo Rifkind, and even John Mann MP, a long-time campaigner against antisemitism, they all agree that antisemitism is worrying, and is increasingly prevalent in the political left. They insist that Jeremy Corbyn is not himself an antisemite, and many of them base their argument on some kind of analogy with Muslims. 

Just as you shouldn’t blame all Muslims for Isis, so you mustn’t blame all Jews for Israel, they reason. Which comes from the premise that Israel is evil. 

The biased reporting of Israel related matters plays an enormous part in fostering this gross misconception. 

Tom Harris covered the low-hanging fruit in the Telegraph, but he also  said:

“Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, these people plead in their defence. And care should be taken not to label every critic of Israel in the same way. We can hardly trumpet Israel’s (rightful) status as a liberal democracy and then try to shut down any criticism of its government by throwing around unpleasant accusations. Yet what is Zionism other than support for the creation and continued existence of the state of Israel? Scratch the surface of these campus revolutionaries and you will find resentment at the decision, in 1948, of the UN, supported by the hated United States, to recognise Israel in the first place. 

Labour must not, cannot tolerate such a view. And yet, among its rank and file it is becoming more commonplace, more accepted. That is surely inevitable when the leadership of the party is willing to tolerate Islamism, of which anti-Semitism is such an inevitable part.”

People Like Owen Jones are as resolutely anti-Zionist as they claim to be against antisemitism . Even Mehdi Hasan  (New Statesman March 2013) wrote about this. 

“It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace. Any Muslims reading this article – if they are honest with themselves – will know instantly what I am referring to. It’s our dirty little secret. You could call it the banality of Muslim anti-Semitism.” 

He goes into more detail, but you can see where he is really coming from when he suddenly says: 

“No, the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict hasn’t helped matters”

So, just like everyone else, he’s ignoring the fact that the ‘ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict’ was  entirely and exclusively caused by  the inherent antisemitism within Islam, and he’s asking Muslims to recognise or tone down their own racism, despite Israel’s assumed malevolence. He is asking his fellow Muslims to do this, reasoning that they don’t like the racism (Islamophobia) that’s perpetrated against them. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  They don’t like it up ‘em.

All these saccharine mea culpas over antisemitism are superficial and quite disingenuous.

They will only be convincing on the day when the MSM, especially the BBC, reports the vile antisemitism that goes on relentlessly, day after day, with the blessing of the Palestinian Authority; the vile antisemitism that is rife within UNRWA, the incitement, the praise and adulation of martyrs within Palestinian society and the appalling indoctrination of children that is standard in Palestinian education.

So, MPs dependent on the Muslim vote, MPs and their followers who support BDS, Journalists and politicians who perceive Muslim migrants as ‘just like us’, they are all responsible for the upsurge in antisemitism. They may be good men who do nothing or no-good men who do a lot.

There was a major conference on antisemitism in Berlin. Did the BBC report it? Michael Gove said:

“There is a duty on all of us in public life to speak out. 

And to watch out for those with whom we might align ourselves 

There is a particular duty on those of us charged with upholding justice to pursue justice in this cause. 

That means asking how those who threaten Jewish lives, Jewish work and the Jewish people’s rights to self-determination - whether in Tehran or Tower Hamlets - can be confronted and held to account.”

Angela Merkel said: 

“It may be that [some refugees] have grown up with certain stereotypes"."It must be absolutely clear," whether to refugees or those born in Germany, "that antisemitism and other prejudices have no place in our society."

How is she ever going to square that circle?

While being interviewed about academies on the Today Programme, Lucy Powell was questioned about antisemitism. “There is a problem in the Labour Party which is not being dealt with effectively”  ventured Sarah, who still seemed surprised to have heard about this puzzling phenomenon.

  “We will not tolerate these abhorrent views”  uttered Ms Powell vehemently.

Haha. We will leave no turn unstoned.

This is where we came in. 

Antisemitism is hard to measure; it has no hard edges and no precise beginning or end.